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Wednesday, December 26, 2012

(Spoiler
Alert: Both of the Medievil games are up for discussion in this
article. You've been warned.)

Last
week, I wrote a
piece on the original Medievil game from the
PlayStation era. As I promised at the end of that article, this week
will be dedicated to the game's sequel, which was released two years
later in April 2000. Comparing these two games from the same series
is rather interesting because when these two games are compared to
each other it is possible to draw parallels to the design of sequels
to modern games, but that will become more clear once I have finished
the comparison. Before we begin, you should know that I expect you to
have read my previous article on this first Medievil game or to have
played the game for yourself as a point of comparison. Since this is
a sequel to one of my favorite games for the original PlayStation, it
invites such comparisons. With that in mind...

The
premise of Medievil 2 is a little easier to understand than the
original game's. After defeating Zarok once and for all, Sir Dan
returns to his crypt and finally rests in peace. Fast forward 500
years later, in 1886, Fortesque's remains have been moved to the
Medieval exhibit in an old museum in London. At the same time,
someone else in the city has managed to acquire Zarok's now-legendary
spell book and has begun to use it for his own end, casting the spell
of Eternal Night and placing London square in the throws of an age
old curse. Once again, Daniel rises from the grave in order to combat
this new threat, which is where the player gets involved and the game
truly begins. From there he meets the ghost of a ten year old kid who
was summoned to guide him to Professor Hamilton Kift, who is an
expert in both scientific and magical pursuits. The professor points
Dan to the Kensington
district of the city in order to look for clues
as to who is behind recent events. There, he investigates the site
where the spell was cast and finds a few clues to take back to Kift.
Before leaving, he sees an anthropomorphic lizard and dog leave the
museum, lamenting the inability to enter the tomb in the King Ramses
exhibit. This leads Sir Fortesque into the tomb himself (after a few
puzzles), where he finds a young mummified woman named Kiya, who was
one of King
Ramesses II's 200 wives. After Daniel discovers
that the villain is an English noble by the name of Lord Palethorn
and thwarts a number of his schemes, the Professor receives notice of
two sites of psychic disturbance, one in an old mansion and the other
in Whitechapel
district. Kift suggests having Dan and Kiya
split up, but Fortesque argues against it, saying that it is too
dangerous for Kiya to go off on her own.

Eventually
he concedes, going to the mansion and allowing Kiya to go to
Whitechapel. After returning, the Professor tells Daniel that Kiya
has yet to return, sending him to go look for her. Unfortunately, Sir
Daniel was too late and by the time he arrived, Jack
the Ripper (who is a demon in Medievil 2) has
just finished draining the soul from her body, leaving her for dead.
Rather than fight to avenge her second death, Fortesque falls into a
depression and runs away into the sewer system, where he meets a
tribe of warriors who make their home down there and worship him as a
god because they found a statue of him. They tell him that they need
help because a sewer monster kidnapped all of the women of their
tribe, which killed their will to live. Being the medieval knight
that he is and desperate for a way to prove himself, Sir Dan rescues
the women and slays the beast. Along the way, he is given a poster to
the Time Machine exhibit in the Museum and safe passage back to the
surface, courtesy of the tribe. As he is leaving, the tribe's chief
makes a passing mention of the Time Stone that is in their
possession. Once back in the professor's lab, Daniel and Kift have a
talk where Kift reveals a few things. First, he tells Fortesque that
he knew Palethorn was behind the second coming of the Eternal Night
and that his time machine only partially works in that it moves
through space, but not time.

With
this information in hand, Sir Fortesque once again ignores the threat
of Palethorn in order to use the Time Machine to rescue Kiya. After
returning to the Museum and finding the prerequisite parts, Daniel
uses the machine to head back into the sewers. As previously noted,
the machine can only travel through space, not time. In order to get
it fully functional and return to Whitechapel in the past, Fortesque
steals the Time Stone from the sewer tribe and disguises himself as
the tribe chieftain to escape and get back to his Time Machine, now
in complete working order. Traveling back to the past, Daniel fights
Jack the Ripper and kills him before history repeats itself. Once the
battle is over, Dan meets the Dan from the past, where they shake
hands and fuse together, giving the new merged Dan a new suit of
magic armor. Resuming where he left off before Kiya's death threw him
into a spiral of stupidi... I mean depression, the Professor has
discovered that the final page of Zarok's spell book is located in
Cathedral
Spires. After braving the horrors of the
Cathedral, Sir Dan finds the final page. It gets stolen by Palethorn
with the help of a levitation spell he apparently has, and used to
summon a powerful demon to begin his subjugation of the world.
Successfully goading the demon into attacking Palethorn, Daniel
defeats them both and finally saves the day.

Like in
the first game, the plot starts off fairly strong. But as the game
goes on, the story begins to feel padded out for no reason but to
lengthen the game and provide additional levels to explore. For a
game that is already short, lasting for about four hours, this is
pretty bad. One level that perfectly illustrates what I am talking
about is a two part level, the first part called “Dankenstein”
and the second part “Iron Slugger.” In one of Palethorn's
miscellaneous schemes in the first half of the game, he builds a
mechanical monster with the intent to kill Dan, Kiya, and Kift in one
fell swoop. To combat this creature, the professor and Kiya devised a
plan to create a creature of their own to fight it. Dan's job for the
first part of the level, “Dankenstein,” is to head into the
London underground in order to collect limbs to use from the results
of the professor's previous experiments in creating a superhuman
through magic and science. As they are about to finish up and attach
the head to it the creature, the professor trips, dropping and
destroying it. With no other options, Fortesque affixes his own head
to the creature in order to pilot it to fight Palethorn's monster. In
the second part of this level, “Iron Slugger,” the creature named
Dankenstein (Get it?) fights the Iron Slugger in a boxing match. This
level and plot point seems completely out of place because it breaks
the (admittedly rather loose) continuity of the game. It does not
make sense for these two sides to just take a break from one-upping
each other in the search for Zarok's spell book pages to have a
boxing match. This not only breaks continuity, but it also
inconsistent with the tone of the game. Medievil has always had a bit
of comedy to it, but this crosses into the truly ridiculous.

The
other example I could point to of the plot being weaker than the
first game's is the whole subplot regarding Kiya and Sir Daniel's
romantic interest in her. Honestly, aside from her death in
Whitechapel which leads to Dan's depression and the whole Time Travel
arc, Kiya does not serve much of a purpose in the overarching story.
I hesitate to use the label of “sexist” because I find that the
label is thrown around far too much, but it is hard to deny the fact
that the only female character's major contribution to the plot is to
die and postpone the conclusion of the game because Daniel had a
romantic interest in her and wanted to act as her chivalrous knight.
It does not help that the whole section with the Sewers and the Time
Machine contains some of the game's weakest writing, approaching the
levels of bad fan-fiction. Even worse is that this whole depression
that Fortesque falls into detracts from his development in the
original game, where the entire point is to prove himself worthy of
being a true hero. It turns out that the moment where humanity needs
him the most to save the day, Dan can only think of a girl he just
met and how she was killed, damning everything else. I am not kidding
in this either. When the professor tries to get him back into the
game by saying “If we don't stop Palethorn, he'll take over the
world” before he runs into the Sewers, Sir Dan mumbles (He still
lacks a jaw) “He can have it, I don't care.” As a child, I just
went with it because I did not know any better. As an young man, it
infuriates me that they shoehorned in a love interest and completely
negated the entire point of the first game.

Before I
conclude in my analysis of the plot to Medievil 2, I want to note
that I feel that in the designers failed to really utilize the
central premise of the game effectively. What I mean by that is that
I think it would have been interesting to see a resurrected medieval
knight come to grips with the new reality of Victorian London. When
Dan comes back to life in this new world, he does not seem to have
any questions regarding the technology, society, or anything really.
This is a minor point to make, but I think acknowledging and poking
fun at the differences between the two societies would be
entertaining while staying true to the feeling of the original
Medievil, which combined humor and horror quite effectively. As it
stands, Daniel has no questions regarding Victorian level technology
and instantly understands everything he comes across. For a brief
example, the very first ranged weapon Fortesque gains is a pistol,
which he instantly knows how to use. This is not necessarily a
complaint, but it is something that I feel could have been used
effectively by the developers.

Now
enough with the plot comparisons, it is high time we went into the
gameplay and how it changed from the original. For the most part, it
plays very much the same and the controls would feel very familiar to
a fan of the original Medievil playing for the first time, but there
are a few key differences. The first of these differences is the
addition of analog stick support. However, since this was when the
pressure sensitive nature of analog inputs were still in their
infancy, it was difficult to use the analog stick to just walk around
and for the most part it would result in just running everywhere,
which made precision platforming difficult at times. While the
gameplay was still similar, the level design proved to be much more
lethal. Medievil 2 remains as one of the few games that I have been
completely unable to beat without the use of cheat codes. (Remember
those things?) There were a higher concentration of levels that
involved platforming in Medievil 2. Given the health system of the
series, which is the exact same system of health bar and Life Bottles
from the first game, this means that unless players were willing to
exit and replay levels over and over to perfection, they could lose
lots of health on platforming. Even worse is that getting health back
is harder in Medievil 2. I did not talk about it, but it the original
Medievil there were Fountains of Rejuvenation in every level, which
healed players and refilled Life Bottles when standing in them until
they ran out of health. A popular way to replenish lost health was to
replay the first level repeatedly because fountains “respawned”
each playthrough of a level. In Medievil 2, they clamped down on that
by tracking how much health was taken from each fountain even when
players left a level and came back, meaning there was a finite amount
of health in the game's world. Paired with the difficult platforming,
this could potentially leave players in an unwinnable state without
cheating.

Combat
also became much more difficult with a reliance on enemies that
either become invulnerable during certain attacks or just cannot be
killed conventionally. This is especially true of the levels Wolfram
Hall, which contain vampires that can only be killed by moving them
into sunlight, and the Sewers, which have creatures that possess the
tribals and goad them into killing the player. These creatures cannot
be slain until they are removed from their host and the tribals
themselves can only be dazed. The puzzle element to Medievil 2's
gameplay was still at the same level of the original games, but made
more interesting. One of the additions that helped keep puzzles fresh
was the addition of the Dan-Hand mechanic, where Sir Daniel can put
his head on a reanimated, undead hand and control it remotely,
separate from his body. Dan can also place his head in many different
places in order to help him solve puzzles. It was a refreshing an
interesting way to add variety to the game. But as a general rule,
while it still plays very much the same, Medievil 2 is a much harder
game than its predecessor.

The last
returning element from the original game that returned is the Chalice
of Souls. Just like in the first game, most of the levels of Medievil
2 contained a Chalice that would fill up with the souls of defeated
enemies. Redeeming this Chalice at the professor's lab after
completing a level would reward players with a new weapon. The
problem with this mechanic is that it seems out of place in Medievil
2. In the original game, the Chalices came from the Hall of Heroes as
a challenge for Sir Dan to prove himself. In the sequel, there is no
real justification for these magic cups to be scattered throughout
the world. They are just lying there waiting for the player to
collect and redeem. As for why Fortesque wants to collect them, there
is a small reason. The professor asks him to collect magic energy to
help power his lab so that he can craft new equipment. Unlike the
original game, the Chalices are no longer a central element and seem
to be only a vestigial mechanic whose purpose is to make the game a
“true” Medievil game. They seem to have no real bearing on the
actual story. I say “seem to” because the ending is actually
determined by how many of them out of a possible ten the player has
collected. The good ending can only be acquired by NOT getting all
ten Chalices and beating the game. In that ending, Dan and Kira
return to Kira's tomb in the Museum and rest in peace together.
Should the player beat the game with all ten Chalices, and thus a
full arsenal, they will be treated to the game's bad ending, where
Dan and Kira take Kift's time machine back to the past... and land in
Zarok's arena in Gallowmere from the first game. They look up and see
the giant monster Zarok transformed into at the end of the first
game, except Palethorn's head will be there instead of Zarok's, and
the screen fades to black. I cannot figure out how the ending could
be determined in universe by the number of Chalices collected. The
time machine does not need magic energy to work, it already works
because there was a whole segment of the game dedicated to fixing it
and getting the Time Stone. It just seems like they did it this way
because the original games also did it this way, without thinking
about the logistics of it.

Back in
the year 2000, when Medievil 2 was first released and I was a seven
year old playing a game I was eagerly awaiting for a long time, I
though that this game was a great game in its own right, even if it
was not as good as the original. Now that I have replayed and
reflected on both of them, I have to say that this game is pretty
lackluster. It had a mediocre story and extremely difficult gameplay.
The game shows what happens when designers reuse old mechanics for
the sake of reusing them without considering why they were used in
the first place and whether or not they still fit. Developers of the
game also really failed to properly play test the game since among
fans of the franchise, the second game is notoriously harder than the
first in an almost unfair way. Lastly, Medievil 2 suffered a major
mistake by overwriting key aspects of the protagonist established in
the original game's bare-bones (pun intended) plot by forcing
elements like a major love interest for no benefit to the overall
storyline. Since many major releases from modern gaming often have
similar problems in their writing, it is still worth pointing out
these kinds of mistakes when they happen. Overall, as a life long fan
of this franchise, it is pretty painful for me to say this and when I
went back to replay these games that was not my intent. I still hold
the original game up as a classic, but I have to rethink where I
place the sequel. It is just not as good as I remember.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

(You
probably don't care, but there are spoilers for Medievil, an old PS1
game. I guess you've been warned.)

A few
weeks back, I went ahead and purchased PlayStation
All-Stars: Battle Royale. I am still having a great time playing
the game and reconnecting with old characters from games past. One of
the characters in that game was my good old friend Sir
Daniel Fortesque from the Medievil
franchise. As a child, I adored these games and loved playing them.
It got to a point to where I was able to play through the original
Medievil from start to finish in a four-hour long play session.
Anyway, seeing Sir Dan make a return made gave me the excuse to go
back and replay the two games in this old franchise. While they still
hold up relatively well to the test of time, they also serve to
demonstrate the necessity of many of the conventions that became
popular in both this console generation and the last. I think this
retrospective will serve as a good lesson for both gamers and
developers.

First
off, what is Medievil? Medievil is a old Gothic-themed platformer
released for the original PlayStation in 1998. It takes place in the
fictional kingdom of Gallowmere in the late 14th century.
The actual story begins in the century prior. In the year 1286,
Gallowmere was in the midst of an era of peace and its citizens were
quite prosperous. During this period, the court wizard Zarok was
caught doing heinous experiments in resurrecting the undead and was
sentenced to exile. As vengeful as he was, Zarok began to wage war
upon Gallowmere, summoning an army of shadow demons to begin the
onslaught. The King of the nation responded by sending his army to
fight the sorcerer head on, led by Sir Daniel Fortesque, who received
his title by spinning interesting stories for the King to hear (it
was an honorary position as no one seriously expected to go to war).
Sir Dan ran head on into enemy forces... and died in the first wave
by being shot in eye with an arrow. The army fought on without him
and Zarok's body was never found. Knowing the truth would cause
unrest with the people, King Peregrin altered the history books to
give Dan the title of Hero of Gallowmere for dying valiantly after
slaughtering Zarok. Peace returned for 100 years, until Zarok was
finished nursing his hatred and began his revenge. He successfully
cast a very powerful spell, cursing the land to Eternal Night,
robbing the townsfolk of their free will, and resurrecting the undead
for his new army. Unfortunately for him, his spell brought old Sir
Dan back from the dead as well. Hoping to redeem himself of his past
mistakes, Daniel takes this chance to save the land of Gallowmere
from Zarok for true and become the hero in undeath that he could
never be in life, finally taking his place in the Hall of Heroes,
where dead heroes gather to boast, feast, and arm wrestle for all
eternity.

As the
description above might show, this is a game that is equal parts
horror and humor, and it uses both to great effect. Playing this game
in my childhood, many of the enemies in the game, from the Stained
Glass Demon trapped in the Hilltop Mausoleum to the Shadow Demons in
the Enchanted Earth, and even minor enemies like the scarecrows in
the aptly named Scarecrow Fields filled me with a mixture of dread
and excitement. Seeing a monster formed of stained glass be released
from his prison to terrorize me was horrifying in a compelling sense.
It is a hard feeling to explain as it has been so long since I felt
that way. As an young replaying the game for the first time in years,
it is only now how funny that game was. Medievil has humor on both a
small and large scale. Small little gestures like Sir Dan removing
cobwebs from his empty eye-hole when waking up are very good moments.
Other larger, repeating gags are the constant mockery of our would-be
hero. Throughout the game, players can visit the Hall of Heroes to
pay homage to the heroes there and earn rewards. Nearly all of them
bear a grudge against Fortesque and/or mock him constantly, saying
the they do not think he can succeed and will likely not be the hero.
The gargoyles scattered around, who serve as the tip dispensers for
the game, also constantly chastise Daniel. The other recurring gag is
Sir Dan's missing jaw, which fell off in the 100 year time span since
his death. This is repeatedly acknowledged and lampshaded throughout
the whole game, and Daniel speaks in mumblings with subtitles helping
the playing understand him.

The game
also had very interesting and varied level designs. Despite taking
place in a decidedly Medievil (pun intended) setting, they used more
than the usual fare when designing the game. The game has many
different levels including a graveyard, a mausoleum, an enchanted
forest, an hedge maze, a cursed medieval village, an insane asylum,
and flooded battlefield, a pumpkin patch, and a pirate ship. These
areas are more varied than in just their backdrops. Each area also
tends to emphasize one of Medievil's three different styles of play:
Puzzles, Platforming, and Combat (much like other 3D platforming
games of the time). For example, in the hedge maze level, the theme
of that level is puzzle solving. The maze is ruled by a unique
gargoyle named Jack of the Green. He will only allow the player to
exit when they answer four of his riddles by searching the maze for
the answers. While he thinks his riddles are so clever that no one
can solve them, the game acknowledges that they are not hard at all
and lampshades it quite effectively. The challenge comes not from
answering the riddles, but from discovering what task the player has
to perform to complete the riddle through Jack's growing irritation.
It is pretty intuitive though, so most players will not have trouble.
This puzzle heavy level leads to the asylum, which is a combat heavy
level in the form of a gauntlet where players have to kill all the
enemies in a room before proceeding. Lastly, there are platforming
levels like the pirate ship, where the emphasis is on timed jumps and
making it from the beginning to the end of the level. Each level is
well planned to fit its theme, giving players much appreciated
variety.

All of
these levels have one thing in common, though. In every stage, there
exists a Chalice of Souls from the Hall of Heroes. While defeating
Zarok is certainly the primary goal of the game, the secondary goal
for Sir Daniel is to prove himself capable of being a hero. To this
end, the champions of the Hall of Heroes have issued a challenge: To
gain standing in the Hall and prove his worth, Dan must collect the
complete set of Chalices and then defeat Zarok. While every level
contains one of these Chalices, Fortesque cannot simply collect them.
They are powered by the energy contained within malicious souls. In
order to materialize the Chalice of a given level, it is necessary to
dispatch enough enemies to fill the Chalice to 100% capacity. Once
that happens, the Chalice can be collected. There are also stages
where the Chalice starts off partially filled. This is both a
blessing and a curse. While it means that players have a kill fewer
enemies, it also means that there are innocent souls in the stage.
Should an innocent person die on Dan's watch, their energy will
reduce the level at which the Chalice is filled. This can make it
impossible to collect the Chalice in most cases. Again, this makes
sense because Dan is trying to prove his worth as a hero, so letting
people die is directly opposed to that. Completing a stage with
Chalice in hand grants the player an aforementioned trip to the Hall
of Heroes, where they can pay homage to one of the great warriors of
the past. While few respect Fortesque and fewer still among the
greats in the hall even like him, they all will offer him aid on his
quest. This aid can come in the form of money, health, a Life Bottle
(which can be use as an extra life), or most likely a new weapon
which can make the player's life easier going forward. Also, the good
ending where Daniel ascends to the Hall of Heroes can only be
obtained by completing the game with every Chalice in hand. I liked
this whole system of collecting the Chalices and still do because it
encourages players to stand their ground and fight all of the enemies
in a level instead of rushing to complete the game, which is entirely
possible in most levels.

As much
as I loved this old game though, it has a problem: A major problem.
As with many platformers of the era, the camera practically conspires
to kill the player at every turn. Replaying the game from my modern
perspective, there were more than a few instances where the
platforming of the game was made unnecessarily difficult by the
camera putting itself in odd positions that made it difficult to
perceive distance between Sir Dan and the platform he needs to jump
to. The combat is also worsened by the camera's tendency to move
around mid-fight and force players to adapt to a new perspective
while enemies are beating on them. This different perspective often
reoriented the directional controls, which further complicates what
should be a simple confrontation. Also, the game was created before
Ape Escape on the original PlayStation made dual analog sticks
standard for most control schemes, so the camera was awkwardly
controlled by the shoulder buttons and it does not work quite as well
as the “left stick controls movement, right stick controls camera”
style most games utilize today. This lack of dual sticks also makes
platforming itself unnecessarily difficult. The directional buttons
do not allow for the same level of precision that analog sticks can
provide, so certain jumps are made harder because of technological
limitations. This is even more painful since Medievil comes from the
era where all game protagonists were completely unable to swim in
water and drowned instantly, even if it makes more sense for this to
affect a skeletal knight in heavy armor. I am willing to forgive it
for these issues, often brought on by growing pains and worsened by
the camera, simply because 3D platforming was still just starting to
take off at the time. Your enjoyment of this is largely, but not
entirely, dependent on your willingness to forgive the rather archaic
(by modern standards) control scheme. The rest of the game has aged
rather well by comparison.

Medievil
was a great game and a fantastic case study for the use of Gothic
architecture and themes in video games, combined with a healthy sense
of humor. Few games since then have re-imagined this period of
history in the same way. Luckily for everyone in North American (and
I think Europe), the game is available for download and use on the
PSN store for the PS3 and the PSP. It only costs around $6, so it may
be worth trying out (and the PC crowd among you could probably just
pirate it and use a PS1 emulator). Next week, I intend to go over the
sequel*, as it has a list of pros and cons that are related, but
altogether different from the original. This is a series I adore and
Sir Daniel is one of my favorite protagonists in video games. I hope
that one day it can see a another sequel, taking the elements that
made the first one and its sequel so great, but re-imagining them
using conventions and systems brought on my developments in modern
game design. While still not as well known as other PS1 games,
Medievil still has a huge cult following and it would be worth
revisiting.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Despite
my many misgivings, harsh criticisms, common sense, and prior threats
to boycott them this year, I went ahead and watched the Video Game
Awards when they aired via Spike TVs livestream. For those who are
unaware, the Spike
TV Video Game Awards are held annually every
holiday season. Most people who follow the industry write off the
award ceremony because the show usually announces the awards in the
background and places a major focus on the announcements and trailers
for upcoming games in their stead. While this is no less true for
this year's ceremony and the VGAs were still very groan-inducing,
something happened which may prove to be significant in the coming
years: The Game of the Year of 2012 was revealed to be Telltale's
The Walking Dead. It was chosen over Assassin's
Creed 3, Dishonored, Journey, and Mass Effect 3. While some might
argue that this is largely irrelevant, I would strongly disagree.
This week, I will explain why this decision to make The Walking Dead
Game of the Year is great for the medium. (Note: I do not intend to
spoil anything about The Walking Dead and will be speaking in broad
strokes. Those afraid of spoilers should not be worried.)

One of
the first reasons that this is a big deal is that unlike previous
Games of the Year for the Spike TV VGAs. The Walking Dead is not a
AAA game. Up until now, the Game of the Year has gone to a AAA
published game without exception. Previous
awards have gone to Madden '04, GTA: San
Andreas, every Bethesda RPG since Oblivion, and Uncharted 2. While
these are all well made games that deserve some sort of accolades
(even Madden, despite my total lack of interest in sports games),
they are all games that come from the biggest publishers in the
industry. Given the nature of the VGAs as more of a hype machine than
an awards show, this makes sense and is something to be expected.
However, this year, the title did not go to one of the ingrained and
well-established names in the industry or one that has a very high
brand recognition. It went to Telltale's take on a comic book
franchise that receives a fairly positive reception, but it largely
irrelevant to the industry at large. This defies the trend of
previous VGA awards. Many people, myself included, figured that Game
of the Year would go to one of two established franchises in the
running, either Assassin's Creed 3 or Mass Effect 3. The Walking Dead
is a game that is produced on a lower budget and on a much lower
scale than most of the other games released this year. This proves to
developers and publishers that AAA-style extremely high budgets are
not required in order to game a great game that can achieve a high
level of popularity and profit, which is something I have complained
about more than one.

The next
reason that The Walking Dead “walking” away with the trophy is a
good thing is that unlike other previous winners of Game of the Year,
it does not have a high emphasis on action. The Walking Dead is very
much a game about talking to people, making decisions, and observing
the emotional impact these decisions have on the ensemble cast of
characters that players meet. It also has a slight emphasis on
puzzles, going back to its roots as a point-and-click adventure game.
This is not the kind of game that one would expect to win Game of the
Year. Those types of games usually have a large focus on other types
of gameplay. Bethesda games tend to focus on exploration of the world
and dealing with the enemies and obstacles that confront them on a
regular basis. Uncharted 2 is a very solid third-person
shooter/platformer hybrid. Bioshock, which won in 2007, is a very
tightly polished shooter. The Walking Dead is a massive change from
all of these. While it does have “combat,” it is incredibly rare
and takes the form of quick-time events. Players will mostly be
talking and solving simple puzzles. What this communicates to the
industry is that games do not always need to involve violence and
killing waves and waves of mooks. It is okay to experiment with
mechanics and try to make games that involve minimal killing or
violence on the players part. Gamers are willing to give new ideas
and concepts a chance. In the past, many people have criticized our
medium for its focus on violence. Knowledge that we can experiment
with this is a very healthy for the industry. Maybe one day we can
see a game where protagonists can be less violent than the usual
fare.

The last
reason that The Walking Dead's victory is a great thing for the
industry is that unlike other games who have won the award in the
past, the primary reason to play The Walking Dead is its story and
how players interact with it. This is directly contrary to years
past, where the winning game's real draw was the mechanics and the
gameplay associated with them, which were almost always completely
divorced from the story. In Bethesda RPGs, the plot is rarely ever of
great significance. The real reason to play is to explore the world
that Bethesda has crafted and see what players can find. GTA games
are well known for giving players the ability to disregard the
campaign in favor of screwing around and playing in a open-world
sandbox. Uncharted 2 and Bioshock do have an emphasis on story, but
they are mostly referred to by their gameplay mechanics and their
nature as shooters. The Walking Dead is not a game that is heavy on
“gameplay” as much as it is “interactivity.” (This is going
to get a little confusing as the vocabulary used to describe video
games is decidedly limited.) Characters and their interactions are
very much at the forefront of the game. Players are encouraged to
talk to people and get to know them. Although it is a
“point-and-click” game, puzzles are not the real reason to play
it. The message this sends to the industry is that we encourage
developers to meddle with the definition of a video game. It is not
vital to include quick-time events or puzzles so that something is
“technically” a video game. After all, those parts of The Walking
Dead tend to be the least interesting, but not necessarily bad, parts
of the game, especially in Episode 1.

To me,
the VGAs are indicative of what the average gamer's perspective. The
enthusiasts like myself sometimes forget that while we love the
industry and are highly involved in it, we are not the only ones in
the industry. Most of the people who are gamers only buy one or two
games per year, probably a Call of Duty and another game, and mostly
play those. It is these people who the VGAs cater to and there is
nothing wrong with that. Looking at it through this lens, the fact
that a game like The Walking Dead was able to win the Game of the
Year is truly astounding. It means that the average gamer is willing
to branch out from their normal gaming routine and try something new
and different. This can only be a positive thing. While I know this
is not going to dethrone the major shooters of the industry, it is a
great start to instilling some sort of change. It is a small victory
that will allow us to press on and aim for larger changes. Do not
think of it as a large victory so much as a shift in momentum. A
small victory is still a victory and we should celebrate while we
can. Now that The Walking Dead game has been achieving so much and
doing so well, it allows us to call into question many
deeply-entrenched beliefs and practices of the industry.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The
prospect of zombies and the undead has always been a theme explored
in video games since the days of the Atari 2600. The reasons for this
are obvious, since they pose an easily comprehensible threat and
provide cannon fodder for players. In recent times however, they
appear to have seen a bit of a resurgence. Many modern games have
incorporated zombies and zombie-related tropes and as a result many
people, including myself, have begun to think that zombies,
“infected,” and their ilk have grown to be overplayed, stale, and
increasingly uninteresting. Having said that, I have recently
finished a game that has made me rethink my sour opinion on the
subject. That game was Telltale's adaptation of The
Walking Dead, available now on the PC, the 360,
and the PS3 via their respective online stores. After playing the
game, I appreciated the zombie apocalypse (and general
post-apocalypse) setting much more than I used to. The realization
came that this setting is stagnating not because it is begin
overplayed, but because game developers have not done anything new or
different with it until now. This week, in a long overdue article, I
delve into why this is and how it may be fixed.

First,
we need to have a discussion on the zombie apocalypse and what it
does. A zombie apocalypse is exactly what it says on the tin, it is a
fantasy apocalypse scenario where, due to either supernatural or
biological/scientific influences, the dead are somehow reanimated,
causing the collapse of society as a whole and ushering in a new
world order. This is a subset of the post-apocalypse setting, where
the world as we known it is fundamentally changed and significantly
set back due to some catastrophic incident or scenario (like
zombies). In these types of settings, there are not very many types
of plots that a writer can utilize. The only overarching plot lines
that this kind of setting can support are typically as follows, but
could include more.

The
“Fight for Survival” where an individual or group has the goal
of making it by from day to day. Typically, this will involve
finding some kind of shelter, gathering food, water, and supplies,
and dealing with threats to one's safety or supply cache.

“Rebuilding
Society” where the individual or group has typically finally
etched a permanent/semi-permanent existence in this new world and
decides to start rebuilding what was lost, forming cities,
cultivating land, banding groups of people together, and
establishing infrastructure and government. This is all done in the
hopes of bringing back some semblance of law, order, and stability
that was lost in the apocalypse.

The
“Power Fantasy” in which the player is thrust into an apocalypse
and told to just go wild and kill as many things (living or undead)
as they possibly can. The protagonist has a large skill set and
great physical prowess and/or a large arsenal of weapons and gadgets
that can handle a wide variety of situations. The plot will
generally be bare-minimum or fall into one of the previous
categories and will exist for no other reason that to give the
protagonist an excuse for racking up a large kill list.

Compared
to other types of settings, this is a very small list, even when
compared to other settings that are often used, like sci-fi or
fantasy. Those settings allow for plots involving political intrigue
between nations, world-spanning adventures, and even plots on a
smaller scale like murder mysteries and revenge stories. This lack of
plot types in itself is not really a significant problem. The true
issue is one that lies within the sphere of video games: the plots
are almost exclusively of the “Power Fantasy” variety. Out of
most of the modern day games that involve zombies that come to mind,
there is a disproportionately high number of zombie-murder-shotgun
simulators. What my mind calls forth when I think of zombies are the
likes of Left 4 Dead, Dead Rising, Resident Evil, Dead Island, and
the zombie mode in the Call of Duty franchise. In all of these games,
the zombies are nothing more than an obstacle that players point and
shoot at until it falls over. This is what leads to a feeling of
being overused and overplayed. It is not that we are using the same
setting over and over again, but that we are doing it with the same
general plot and narrative structure as well.

Fast
forward to The Walking Dead, and now we no longer have a Power
Fantasy. Instead, the designers at Telltale chose to embrace the
source material and use the “Fight for Survival” plotline with a
well developed and realistically written cast of survivors. This
enabled them to focus on small scale, highly character driven,
personal, stories where the player and his party are forced into
desperate situations and experiment with the gameplay, where players
are forced to make painful choices and bear the weight of those
choices. Emotions run high and players can often be brought to tears
when faced with the events that are unfolding in front of them. The
shift away from the standard Power Fantasy refreshes the setting,
making it new and interesting. Players never plow through tons of
zombies. Whenever the zombies come, they are presented as a genuine
threat and the best course of action is always to retreat. All these
characters are trying to do is stay alive and see tomorrow. This is
where most zombies games get it wrong. Designers forget that there
are other plots they can use in this setting and go for the standard
power fantasy. These other plot types can add a weight and emotional
backbone to the game. There is nothing wrong with a good Power
Fantasy, but gamers want more than that. As they say, variety is the
spice of life.

But
Power Fantasies are easy to craft. All designers need to do is create
a hoard of mooks and some weapons to fight them. It takes more work
than it does to think up of quality writing and good gameplay
mechanics that reinforce the other two plot lines. Aside from the
Fallout franchise and the flash game Rebuild,
which focus on the rebuilding of society in a post-apocalypse, and
The Walking Dead, where the daily struggle for survival is on
display, one would be hard-pressed to find post-apocalypse games that
are not strictly in the realm of Power Fantasy. (And yes, I am very
much aware that there is a very strong case to be made for Fallout
being a Power Fantasy. You do not need to tell me.) I would petition
game designers to branch out every once in a while and break the
mold. Do something different from that which we have all seen before
and show the creativity in all of those development studios. I know
that game designers are more than capable of experimenting with new
concepts and/or reiterating on old ones in interesting ways. I just
wish that they would show off the capability more.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Judging by my previous bodies of work, you may assume that I play
only RPGs and very little else. This is a perfectly logical
assumption and one that you would be forgiven for making, yet it is
not exactly true. I play a variety of games of diverse genres and
with different expectations for each one. Recently, I purchased and
beat the third main installment of the Assassin's Creed franchise. In
the early writings for my blog, I had a fewthings
to say about the franchise, and it is about time I returned to it.
While I am a huge fan of the series and enjoyed my time with the new
protagonist Connor Kenway from the time of the American
Revolution, I noticed that the game was not without flaws which
may pose a danger to the series going forward. This is not intended
to be a review of the game, rather a collection of thoughts about it
that have a general theme. Also, I will not be discussing multiplayer
in any shape or form: Assassin's Creed will always be a primarily
single player game to me, with an added (but welcome and enjoyable)
multiplayer component. Lastly, I intend this to be spoiler free, yet
I acknowledge that what I say may come with implicit spoilers, you
have been warned. With that in mind, here is my critique of
Assassin's Creed 3.

The first thing I really began to notice towards the middle of
Assassin's Creed 3 was the vast quantities of side stuff to do.
Normally, I would be all for the inclusion of more content in a video
game to help justify the $60 purchase price. However, in this game
many of the optional missions feel decidedly arbitrary and pointless.
Many of them are, and I mean this quite literally, a series of
checklists of tasks to perform in order to build rapport for various
factions in the game that the player will rarely see or interact
with. Things like “Kill X amount of enemies with Y weapon,”
“Perform a Leap of Faith X times,” or “Use Z gadget to perform
X perfect hunts.” The game asks the player if they want to perform
these tasks, yet offers no incentive to do so. While I have not
actually completed the tasks myself, as far as I am aware there is no
reward besides a useless achievement/trophy for completing them.
Players are also invited to explore the underground network of
tunnels built by the Free Masons in Boston and New York to unlock
fast travel locations. However, the game already offers a sizable
number of fast travel locations by default, so this again seems like
an empty, pointless gesture, even if the tunnels themselves are very
interesting in their own right. There is also an optional moneymaking
mechanic in the Davenport Homestead. Connor has to renovate the
Homestead and bring enough people to come to live there in order to
build a thriving community. The characters and subplots introduced
through this quest-line are very well done and help to flesh out
Connor as a character (and I have to stress that this does wonders
for making Connor a much more relatable protagonist). The problem
with this is that the ultimate use for the Homestead is to craft
goods and make money by shipping them to various vendors. While
players can use this money to purchase new weapons and equipment for
use on missions, it is ultimately superfluous because Connor's
initial inventory is more than enough to take the player from the
start of the game to the end of the game. Lastly, the player can take
part in a series of collection quests. They can gather up feathers
from the Colonial Frontier, open treasure chests scattered throughout
the game world, and reclaim the pages to Benjamin
Franklin's legendary
almanacs. Yet again, these do not seem to manifest into any
tangible gameplay benefits: Collecting feathers nets the player a
Native American tribal outfit, opening chests grants the player money
and recipes for the Homestead they do not need since the economy
confers no real benefit, and the Almanac's again give more recipes.
All of these extras are included in the game and provide extra
length, yet they all (with the exception of the Homestead) feel
tacked on and serve no purpose in the context of the game besides
lengthening a playthrough's running time. An average player will
have no need to do most of this.

Another observation I made when playing Assassin's Creed 3 is that
the game has many different gameplay types, to the point where it may
seem somewhat scattered and disjointed. Throughout the game, the
player is introduced to a number of different mechanics that are only
used once or twice and then never used again. Players will be asked
to direct Patriot troops in battle in the middle of a Loyalist siege.
In another mission later on, they are tasked with firing a cannon
into Loyalist troops in order to stop them cold. At another point in
the game, players are forced to cross through no man's land in the
middle of a shootout, learning the timing and ducking from cover to
cover avoiding the shots. All of these gameplay styles are only used
in their respective sequences and never make repeat appearances.
While they serve their purpose in breaking up other sections and
providing a bit of a breather, the side quests and other missions
should be doing that while the main quest sticks to reiterating on
their core mechanics in interesting ways. There is one last mechanic
that deviates from the standard Assassin's Creed gameplay style, but
it is more ingrained into the game: The naval missions. As a part of
the story, Connor gains his own ship with which he can sail the sees
in pursuit of the Templars and other things. Ship combat sections
appear a few separate times in the story and there is an optional
quest-chain surrounding naval combat, and they are all very well done
and deserve praise. However, it again seems like a distraction from
what should be the main mechanics of the franchise. All of these side
mechanics seem to get in the way of what should be a game about
stabbing dudes in the throat.

Speaking of killing dudes, the arsenal Connor has with which to do
so is a fairly decent one. He has access to Hidden Blades,
Swords/Axes/War Clubs, Tomahawks/Daggers, Pistols, Bows, Rope Darts,
Poison Darts, Trip Mines, Muskets, Snares, and Smoke Bombs. This is
quite the inventory. But the problem is that most the this equipment
feels completely useless. In my playthrough of the game, I basically
only used the Hidden Blade and Tomahawk in combination with Smoke
Bombs and Bows. I rarely used the Pistol and NEVER used any of the
other pieces of equipment. The game bills Connor's inventory as a
toolbox the player can use to solve any problem in any manner they
please. However, this is not the case. Due to the optional objectives
and constricted, occasionally linear level design, any decision the
player might have made with tactics is immediately thrown out the
window. Due to the nature of the story, with the player playing as
Desmond Miles, who is reliving Connor's memory through the Animus
device, the player is given optional objectives in order to
improve synchronization with Connor's memory by doing things how he
did it. It will give players objectives like “Kill X amount of
enemies from a hiding spot” or other such tasks to complete
mid-mission. So while the player in theory has a multitude of way to
go through many missions, they will in actuality only have one or two
“best” ways of successfully pulling it off. Also, many of the
missions have the player moving from waypoint to waypoint to waypoint
in a decidedly linear fashion. Even without these constraints, just
going in and having an all out brawl to kill everyone is generally a
tactic that works. The way levels and set-pieces are arranged, there
is either very little challenge or a great deal of challenge
(depending on whether or not the player chooses to go after optional
objective and what those objectives are at times) without much of a
middle ground or room for experimentation.

When all of these points are combined, it results in a game that,
while well-intentioned, feels like it does not truly know what it
wants to be. The game is lacking in an underlying core than binds
everything together. It feels like it is juggling too many balls at
once and is destined to drop a few of them as a result, even if the
vast majority remain in the air. These mechanics dilute the game and
keeps it from shining in the way it really should. For future
Assassin's Creed games, I recommend making a return to the simplicity
and purity of the first game where the goal is to kill targets in
creative and sneaky ways, but with the advancements made in the
systems by subsequent games. The first game allowed players to
research their targets and learn all about their habits and routines,
giving them the information to plan their assassinations. I would
love to see them weave this investigation into the story-driven plots
the series has come to be known for. The story would take players
through the investigation, but loosen the leash during the actual
assassinations, giving players much more freedom in that respect. It
may be wise to kill the concept of optional, mid-mission objectives
as they tend to hinder the game more than they help. Go back to the
core of the franchise. For all the talk of Assassins vs. Templars,
there is very little in the way of assassination that goes on in more
recent games in the franchise. Assassins apparently tend to do more
faffing about then actual killing.

That is not to say that Assassin's Creed 3 is a bad game by any
means. In fact, after the Ezio trilogy, it is a step in the right
direction. The game has returned the series to the interesting gray
on gray dynamic between the Templars and Assassins over the Chaotic
Good vs. Stupid Evil conflict of Assassin's Creed 2. In fact, the
plot in general is very well written, even if the rewrites to history
done in order to shoehorn Connor into the American Revolution feel a
little like Forrest Gump. The improvements they made to the parkour
systems really help to improve the overall game. This is a very good
game. I am just somewhat disappointed as a long time fan of the
franchise that it may be falling victim to the sin of trying of
please everyone. This franchise can work, but it needs to be planned
more carefully. I do not want to see it fall to the wayside.

Wednesday, November 14, 2012

A long
time ago (at least 350 internet years, which translates to around one
year ago on October 2011), a writer at Bioware named Jennifer Hepler
was the object of immense
controversy. At the time of this incident, one
statement is particular was brought to light
that she had made six years ago: She had told interviewers that she
wished that developers would more often include more “casual”
difficulties for people like her that do not necessarily enjoy
playing video games, but like to be engaged in a good story, in which
the gameplay sections are skipped in order to go from dialogue to
dialogue. Though at first I was in support of this “Hepler Mode,”
in time I began to change my mind. This is not to say that I am
against making easier difficulties for new players. In fact, quite
the opposite is true in that regards. In the past, I have been vocal
in my support of simplifying systems and allowing for adjustable
difficulties to facilitate a variety of player skill levels. No, the
problems with this “Story” mode are related to the underlying
assumptions that are implied by the idea.

The fact
that this has even come up in discussion is proof of a fundamentally
poor design principal which is prevalent in the gaming industry (and
honest probably has been for quite some time), which is that story
and gameplay can and should be allowed to exist separately. This line
of thinking is prevalent in video games of all types, from shooters
like Call of Duty, to open-world games like inFamous, and even
Western-style RPGs like Mass Effect, which have choice and
consequence as major themes and mechanics. In many of these games,
there is a clear divide between the moments where the player is
engaged in the story and is advancing the plot and the other moments
that consist of mostly shooting mooks or other gameplay elements.
These sections where the game is nothing but intense combat seem to
have no real impact on the outcome of the events and exist merely to
extend the length of the game. Mass Effect is a clear example of this
in action. In every Mass Effect game (and many other Bioware games if
what I am told is true), despite the choices the player makes and the
changes to the overall timeline as a result of these choices, the
player will always play through the same levels with the same
enemies. The only thing that the player can do to change up these
encounters is to play as a different class and/or bring different
squadmates along. The opposite of this phenomenon is also true. No
matter what class the player chooses, who they bring on missions, and
what they do during combat scenarios, the story will never be
affected by it. Each of these two sections of the game exist, for all
intent and purposes, independently of the other. This is not how
games should be designed. The gameplay and the story should exist to
supplement each other. They should be so entwined as to be nearly
inseparable. Interaction and choice are the biggest strengths of the
medium. In order to use it to most effective tell a tale, designers
need to keep this in mind. Spec Ops: The Line is a fantastic example
of that (which will be left vague because of spoilers).

The
other error in the underlying assumptions of “Hepler Mode” is the
question of who this kind of mode would be aiming for marketing-wise.
What I mean by that is that Jennifer Hepler notes that one of the
reasons this kind of mode of play would be needed is that there are
people out there that do not like video games, yet are interested in
a good story. Ignoring whatever opinion you may have of Hepler, why
would a game developer or publisher even make an attempt to capture a
market that literally has no interest in their products? What would
be gained from that? Any interest this non-gamer market would have in
video games would be superficial at best. This is not the same thing
as attracting people who may have an interest in games, but are put
off by the (admittedly high) barriers of entry like consoles/PCs,
price of games, and complicated control schemes aimed at those
familiar with other games. That makes sense. What does not make sense
is marketing to people that literally have no interest in the medium
at all. Doing so is a recipe for disaster and one of the easiest ways
a developer can piss away the good will of its fans. If the target
demographic has no interest in playing games, then the odds are that
they will not even know the publisher is marketing to them, let alone
have any interest in the games being marketed.

This
problem with “Hepler Mode” is not that it is an unsound concept,
but rather that it should not be. If the combat system wears down
most players so much that the vast majority of them are asking to
skip it entirely, then it may be a good idea to revamp the systems of
the game to make it more entertaining. It is up to designers to make
tough calls like editing, revising, and even removing features or
parts of levels in order to improve the overall experience because
that is what they are paid to do. The gameplay is just as much a part
of the experience as the storyline. To give players the option to
skip gameplay is to concede the video games are nothing more than
movies with playable segments in between shots. That is not
acceptable! It goes against the very strengths of the medium. Games
are at their best when they embrace their nature as interactive media
and utilized it to the fullest. While this is an old issue, it is
still an important one nonetheless and I hope that lessons were
learned from it.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

In the
past, I have had certain
critiques of the machine that fuels game reviews. While many
people out there think of game reviews as simple buyer's advice, I
called on major game review outlets to do more in the way of critical
analysis of the games that they review. That is an opinion that can
be up for debate, but it is not the subject of this piece. Recently,
a series of events have occurred that shine the spotlight once again
on the game review industry. On the 16 October 2012, an
interview with industry veteran Geoff Keighly,
executive producer of Game Trailers TV and the Spike TV Video Game
Awards, was published on the YouTube channel “Shifted2u.” For the
duration of the interview, Mr. Keighly was shown sitting with a bag
of Doritos and several 2-liter bottles of Mountain Dew to his left,
and a display stand of Master Chief, promoting Halo 4 and sponsored
by Doritos and Mountain Dew, to his right. A particular image from
this interview, one the pictured Keighley in a particularly lifeless
state, spread rapidly on the internet.

Later
that month, on 24 October 2012, writer Robert Florence published an
article (Note: This is a reprinting of the
original article, not the copy on Eurogamer's site for reasons that
will be detailed shortly.) on eurogamer.net,
posting the image along with a scathing critique of game reviewers
and their relationship with the PR representatives of many large game
publishers. In this article, he mentioned that during the Game Media
Awards, many notable game journalists were seen taking part in a
publicity stunt in which a certain publisher was giving away six
Playstation 3 consoles to six lucky game journalists out of all of
the ones who tweeted their excitement for their upcoming game, using
a particular hash tag. (To avoid giving that particular company
further publicity for this stunt, I have elected to avoid mentioning
their name directly. If you are curious, you may wish to look this
incident up for yourself.) In this write-up, he quoted the twitter
responses that some journalists made regarding the backlash they
received from these tweets. One quote, from game journalist Lauren
Wainwright, in particular reads: “Urm…
[redacted] were giving away PS3s to journalists at the GMAs. Not sure
why that's a bad thing?” Because of the use of said statements in
the article, Intent Media, a firm that Ms. Wainwright works for,
allegedly threatened to file a lawsuit against Eurogamer claiming
libelous use of her words. Due to the resulting pressure, Eurogamer
had no choice but to release Mr. Florence from his employment with
the company. Furthermore, they had to edit the article, removing the
quotes used. The revised
version
remains on Eurogamer's site for all to see.

The
combined weight of these incidents has rekindled charges that the
gaming press is corrupt and “bought” by the major publishers of
the industry. After looking at all that has happened recently, I can
understand why people would say that. It is even easier to see how
something like this might happen. Game journalists and PR
representatives both have a passion for the games on display and love
to talk about games. Furthermore, PR representatives need to find a
way to release the information they want to be released to the
audience for their products and game journalists want information to
release to their audience, which is, of course, the exact same
audience publishers wish to give information to. Since these two
sides have similar goals, interests, and audiences, it is no surprise
that there is something of a symbiosis between them. They rely on
each other in order to be successful at their jobs. This,
unfortunately, makes it easy to lose sight of one's responsibilities.
When game journalists start to think of the people they get press
releases and information from as friends, things start to go awry.
This can easily cloud their judgment when writing reviews and
previews, discussing the games in their queue, and even when contests
and special events are run. I do not mean to imply that these
relationships between PR and journalists are necessarily bad things.
However, they must be kept in check by both parties, else people may
(as has already been demonstrated) begin to question the validity of
the whole process. Both sides of the relationship need to be vigilant
that friendship does not cross into professional responsibilities.
Most likely easier said than done, but it is necessary if journalists
want to maintain their legitimacy.

Another
factor in contributing to this air of corruption is the fact that
game journalists are essentially just fans of the games. Again, this
is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does help contribute to all of
this nonsense that we are seeing. Very few personalities in gaming
journalism actually have training and/or education in Communications
or Journalism. Most are just people who began to write about video
games, either on small start up sites or just for fun in their spare
time, and rose to their positions through meeting people, generating
a solid fanbase, and/or sheer tenacity. The one thing they all have
in common is a passion and fandom for video games and the medium as a
whole. Just as with their relationship with PR, this can cloud their
judgment when not kept in check. With the advent of blogging and
other means of releasing opinions for the world to see, it is even
more important to do so. If people find that a reviewer's fandom is
clouding their better judgment and leaving them susceptible to
corruption, then their audience can easily move to one of the
thousands of other competing outlets and ignore them entirely.

I
am not a gaming journalist: All I am is a lowly blogger, in a sea of
lowly bloggers, with a passion for the industry. I will not make the
claim that the gaming press as a whole is corrupt. I follow many of
them on Twitter and have even had very interesting conversations with
a few of them. However, what we have all seen in recent times is
indicative of a problem. There are indeed some people in the gaming
press that do not understand the need to stay on the high and narrow
and not fall victim to many of the tactics that PR use to spread
information. Clearly, some do not realize how much value can be lost
to unprofessional conduct and behavior. Regardless of whether or not
there is actual corruption in the gaming press (and, let us be
honest, there definitely are very sketchy, at best, news outlets in
the industry), there is, at the very least an appearance
of corruption, which is a very big issue in and of itself. If even a
select few make the press look disingenuous and corrupt, then that
has severe negative repercussions on the whole industry and how
people think of it. It is vital that the press clean up their act and
begin to look more like professional journalists. This does not mean
that they need to stop being silly, making jokes, or enjoying their
jobs, but it does mean that they need to maintain a level of
transparency with their readers/viewers. As one Escapist Magazine
News Team Staff Member, Jonathan
Grey Carter,
said, “Taking
your job seriously does not equal taking yourself seriously.”
With regards to gaming journalists themselves, he added that “You
are not an important person, you write about toys for a living.
Perspective always helps.”
While I like to think of games as slightly higher on the totem pole
than “toys,” the point is still valid. Journalists can maintain
transparency and a sense of integrity while still being passionate
gamers that care for the industry. All it takes is a little bit of
thinking before taking part in certain contests or giveaways and an
acknowledgment of mistakes when they happen. This is not a call to
get rid of the advertising money that major publishers spend on the
gaming press. Let us be honest, the press is a business and the money
needs to come from somewhere. It is simply a word of caution. To the
gaming press, please be a little more careful and understand that
when we raise issues with things you do, it is because we want you to
do better and we believe that you can. Like many of you do to the
games themselves, we criticize because we care.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

It
cannot be disputed that gaming has grown to become a legitimate form
of expression and speech. Over the years, it has acquired a
legitimacy previously in dispute and constantly vied for by
developers and publishers. Now that the Supreme Court of the United
States has rendered
its ruling on the matter and sided with us, the
gamers, this is no longer a matter up for debate. Despite the fact
that we have reached this point, it seems that developers can still
be susceptible to the pressures and influences of the media and major
news outlets. It is not the norm for developers, but it does happen
often enough and gamers can get caught in the crossfire when it does.
This week's article is dedicated to these instances and what is wrong
with them. Instead of my usual format where I make a sweeping general
statement and then support it with facts, I will do things in
reverse. I will outline three different cases and then tie them
together with my point in the end. Now, without further ado:

The
first case will be talking about was somewhat controversial when it
was announced: Six
Days in Fallujah. Many of you many have
heard of this game, developed by Atomic Games, a company that
specializes in war games like the Close Combat and World At War
series. The story behind the creation of this game is a very
interesting one. One of the many divisions of Atomic Games was
contracted to create a set of training tools of the Marine Corp of
the United States. In order to do this, Marines from the Third
Battalion, First Marines were assigned to them. In the midst of
development, these Marines were deployed to the Battle
of Fallujah. After returning to continue
development, the Marines themselves requested that the developers
make a game about their experiences during this conflict. From that
request was born the desire to make a realistic and true-to-form tale
of what the soldiers go through, based on actual testimony and
experiences from returning US Marines, Military Officials, and other
experts of combat in the modern age. While actual gameplay footage of
Six Days of Fallujah, at least the footage I found, reveals
very little about the game itself, Atomic describes it almost as
survival horror game. Players were to assume the role of a company of
soldiers in the Battle of Fallujah, going through the mission in a
way that actual soldiers would go about it. This would entail
constantly being on edge and being unable to predict what could come
at the player next. The player would have gone up against tactics
used by enemy insurgents and combatants in real world conflicts. It
was to depict the physical and psychological toll that war takes on
the people involved, similar in a sense to the more recent Spec
Ops: The Line, although with an even stronger grounding in
reality. This game was originally going to be published by Konami.
However, on April 27, 2009, they backed down from the project when
faced with pressure from media in the US. The outcry came mostly from
the parents of soldiers who lost their lives in the conflict speaking
out against it for fear that they would not treat the subject with
respect. Because of all of this, the developer was left to fend for
itself. Though the game has long since been finished, Atomic has yet
to find someone willing to publish it. To this day, they have been
reduced to a minimal crew of few people and are still trying to find
someone to help them bring the game to the public.

Our next
case was much luckier than Atomic, but it is still a very telling
one. We are going to talk about the reemergence
of the Medal of Honor series, now published by EA and developed by
Danger Close Games. Before the days of Call of Duty's dominance, in
the time of World War 2 shooters, Medal of Honor was one of
the top dogs in the FPS genre. When it was going to be reawakened in
2010, people were naturally curious about the subject. However, one
design decision in particular caused controversy. In the game's
multiplayer mode, instead of making one side a generic, nameless
terrorist organization, the game was going to mirror real life
warfare by making them the Taliban. The problem arose from the fact
that this meant that many players would inevitably play as the
Taliban's forces against representations of soldiers from the United
States and its allies. Faced with pressure from different groups, and
with US military officials banning the sale of the game on their
bases, Danger Close and EA folded, changing the name of the terrorist
group in the game to the OpFor (Opposing Forces). Though the game did
reasonably well, it was far from one of the top sellers. With the
exception of the controversy surrounding it, there was nothing
noteworthy about it and it quickly faded into obscurity until the
sequel emerged.

This
last case study differs greatly from the first two. Not only is this
one not, strictly speaking, a war game, but it also did very well in
many aspects. Nonetheless, it will follow the themes laid out in this
article and needs to be discussed. One of my favorite games to
discuss and criticize, this one will be an old hat to returning
readers of my series: Mass Effect 3, published by EA and
developed by Bioware. Now, given the circumstances behind the last
two cases, I think all of you can guess what I will be discussing
here. When Mass Effect 3 was released to the public earlier
this year, it was highly praised for the most part. People were
enjoying the final chapter of the franchise. Then, all of us reached
the ending of the game. This caused people to... react... negatively.
Rather than defend their work with logical, well thought out
arguments, Bioware initially decided to hide behind the veil of
something as obscure and meaningless as “artistic integrity.”
Later on, they recanted their previous statements and released the
Extended Cut version of the ending. This was not a change to the
ending, but rather a revision of it. While this revision is generally
a good one, combined with the response from Bioware to the response
of the original ending, it called the developer's practices into
question. After the issues people had with Mass Effect 2 and Dragon
Age 2, along with the Day 1, On-Disc DLC of Mass Effect 3,
Bioware was on thin ice. The way they handled the ending of the
franchise proper was not helping to smooth this over.

So what
do these all have in common and what is this building up to? Well, it
is pretty simple. While cases like these three are fairly rare, they
do and will probably continue to happen, meaning they need to be
called out now so that developers and publishers can learn from them.
All of these games had controversy surrounding them and the developer
and/or the publisher was responsible for mismanaging the controversy
and doing for harm to the product and brand than they needed to. In
the case of Six Days of Fallujah, Konami failed to address the
naysayers and instead opted to sever ties with Atomic. They could
have easily decided to stand by the game and addressed the critiques
of the project. Going in, Konami had to have known that this kind of
reaction was possible, they are not stupid. It would have been
necessary to make a plan to address this. Since the developers seemed
to have known what they were doing, it would have been easy. Spec
Ops: The Line later proved that games can and should address the
subject of war from an pessimistic and cynical point of view as
opposed to the military bravado expressed in games like Call of Duty:
Modern Warfare. They did not support the statement this game would
have made and decided to abandon it, washing their hands of the whole
affair.

In the
case of Medal of Honor, gamers stood up for EA and Danger Close. We
as a whole felt that it was okay for them to make the move to have
the Taliban as part of the multiplayer mode. When they decided to
cave into the pressure and change the Taliban to the OpFor, they lost
any support that they had. Once they no longer stood behind their
product and their decisions, gamers could no longer do so either.
They had felt betrayed that they had stood up for EA and were then
left in the dust. This brought negative attention and spite to the
Medal of Honor brand that it could never truly recover from, even if
the game itself was not as mediocre as it was. The US Military still
refused to stock the game in stores on their bases well after the
developers made the change, meaning that it was for naught. All that
Medal of Honor left it its wake was bitterness, and its okay sales
reflected that.

As for
Mass Effect 3, like I said, Bioware initially did their best to
respond to the criticisms and stand behind the ending they created.
However, instead of using logical and sound arguments to support the
ending like the themes it was supposed to represent, the obvious lack
of resources and time, etc., they chose to use “artistic
integrity,” a useless phrase that has no meaning. Then, they
released the Extended Cut as a way to “clarify” the ending,
changing a few scenes and ret-conning the destruction of the Mass
Relays. Neither one of these reactions was good and both brought the
wrong kind of press to Bioware's doors. By hiding behind “integrity,”
Bioware opened itself to many criticisms and made itself look pretty
weak all things considered. And then when they released the Extended
Cut, they sent out another subtle message to their fans. By changing
the ending, they show, perhaps unknowingly, that they did not fully
endorse the product they were sending out initially. If this was
indeed the case, then it should have never been released in the state
it was in. Just like with the case of Medal of Honor, if Bioware
cannot support the game they release, then how can they expect fans
to do the same. One of two reactions could have helped to mitigate
the damage. Bioware could have fervently and forcefully stood behind
their ending. While, as a detractor of the ending, I would not have
liked that reaction, I would have understood it, accepted it, and
finally moved on after awhile had they supported it enough. The other
possible reaction was to simply admit that they made a mistake.
Telling the public that they took a risk and it did not pan out is
not the most pleasant thing to do, but it would have reduced
tensions. Gamers knew something was wrong with Mass Effect 3, they
are not stupid. Saying that would lay many fears to rest, since the
imagination can often times can be worse than the real thing.

The
underlying moral behind all of these issues is that people involved
were not willing to stand behind the work they did and caved in to
pressure. In all of these cases, doing so led to a generally weaker
position for each of these projects and negatively impacted them in
some way. Let us all be honest here, making games is not a science:
It is very much a creative endeavor. As such, it important to have
courage when developing games. In much plainer language, if
developers and publishers do not have the guts to stand behind what
they make, then they have no business being in this industry and need
to remove themselves before they grow bankrupt. Making safe bets and
following the leader will not work here. It takes ambition,
creativity, passion, and guts. Bowing to pressure is the biggest
indicator that companies do not belong in the industry. This is
something I feel strongly about, and I would hope you all do too.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

It is no
secret that video games have been in a constant state of evolution.
Unlike books, movies, and music, our medium is still very much a
young one. We are constantly pushing the limits of what interactivity
with media can do. As gaming continues to push and grow, it has begun
to demonstrate a very clear trend in recent years. Rather than strive
complex, intricate systems that require a lot of patience and skill
to master, most games have opted for simpler, easier to pick up and
play systems. Many people lament this change. They feel that games
are being “dumbed down” and think of it as a worsening of the
medium as a whole. I disagree with this assessment. I believe that
simplification is a good thing for our industry. In this week's post,
I will explain my reasoning.

The
primary reason simplifying games is a good thing is that it leads to
a bigger audience for them. Before you moan about all the “f***ing
casuals” or “'hardcore' Call of Duty players,” please take a
moment to listen to my point. Bigger audiences allow developers to do
more, since their sales are likely to be much higher. A degree of
risk can be taken and further innovation can be made if sales of
other projects can be virtually guaranteed. As much as we complain
about the dullness of yearly release schedules for games like Call of
Duty (and let's be honest, the yearly release does negatively
impact Call of Duty games), the profits on these games could be used
to fund other projects that are more risky and may not be as well
received. (They are not, usually, because of the way AAA companies
work, but they could be.) Look at Valve for an good example of the
positives of guaranteed profits. The near monopoly Valve has over PC
gaming thanks to Steam virtually assures them that they will make
profits no matter what they do with their money. Because of this,
they are able to take (Valve) time to plan out, tweak, play-test, and
re-tweak all of the parts of their games to ensure that they are of
high quality. While people do bemoan the how simple modern games have
become, they do help to attract these revenue streams that allow for
more risky projects to be developed to advance the medium and cater
to other tastes.

The
other benefit of this extended audience, due to simplified systems,
is that it brings in a more diverse and interesting set of viewpoints
into the industry. This may seem something unimportant, but it is
crucial to the advancement of the industry. Most people who have
knowledge of the industry are aware that it is pretty much dominated
by 20-30 something white men. While this should not be unexpected, it
is detrimental to the industry. There is only so many ways 20-30
something white men can look upon a subject or topic. If we can bring
in more demographics and people, each with their own perspectives,
viewpoints, and biases, then we can broaden both the types of games
that get released and their themes and topics. In any sort of
entertainment industry, injecting new people and experiences will be
a good thing. It helps to avoid stagnation and keeps things fresh and
exciting for people. Different demographics are inherently going to
have these new viewpoints due to the fact that they live different
lives. Having a higher audience increases the number of people
interested in games, which leads to more folks wanting to make a
career out of it. This influx will invariably lead to more diverse
people simply due to the law of averages. With that, we could see
some much needed diversity in video games.

The
second advantage to making systems simple and discarding complication
is the way that it reduces tedium in game mechanics. This is
something most people are at least aware of, even if they do not
exactly know it, but it needs to be said anyway: Just because
something is complex does not make it deep. On the other hand, just
because something is simple to pick up and play does not make it make
it shallow. Depth comes from the degree to which one can learn and
master the systems at play. Though not, strictly speaking, a video
game, Chess is the ultimate example of this. The game itself is
simple to understand. There are only a limited number of rules one
must need to know. However, everyone knows that chess is a game of
intricacies and depth. There are hundreds of thousands of possible
permutations of the game board and equally as many tactics to
experiment with. While anyone can play to moderate success, someone
who is an expert of the game will easily defeat a novice or
intermediate player. We have seen video games with similarly simple,
yet deep mechanics. Final Fantasy V is a good example with its job
class system that has many different combinations. Another
demonstration of this would be the recently released Dishonored. The
game has a fairly limited tool-set that the player can use. However,
the level design and game systems encourage experimentation and
combination of these tools to efficiently and skillfully get passed a
number of different situations. Like the other games in that fit this
description, it falls into the category of “easy to learn, hard to
master, ” which is something I whole-heartedly encourage. If
developers keep mechanics simple, it forces them to use them in more
creative and unique ways, rather than bloat their games with
unnecessary filler.

While I
support this trend of keeping games simple, I must confess that we
must be careful with it. There is such a thing as
over-simplification. Some games do benefit from a slight amount of
complexity. It depends on the game in question. Other times, the
mechanics are so simple and the level design is so mediocre that it
makes for a generally bad experience. It is necessary to balance
simple systems that any player can use with depth that allows others
to go into the system and try to fully master it. Depth is what is
most important, not complexity. Developers need to make deep
experiences in order to attract people. We do not need excess
complexity in games anymore. That is a thing of the past.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Out
of all the genres of video games, few a more fascinating than the
survival horror genre. It is one of the few existing genres that has
the express purpose of eliciting a specific emotion. Because of this,
the genre has tougher standards and is more of an evolved and
practiced science than others. There are tricks and tactics
developers can ascribe to that are tested and true. With the release
of Resident Evil 6, which was very
poorly received by the gaming press and public,
the subject of horror has once again become relevant. This week, I
want to talk more about the genre. I will discuss what is, in my
humble opinion, the best way to invoke horror and why you will rarely
see new horror games outside of the indie scene.

One
of the first factors that horror developers must keep in mind is the
concept of atmosphere. The tone and layout of the environment is a
very key factor in this. Horror relies on the player feeling like the
environment is out to get them. They need to feel weak and oppressed
and the world needs to reflect that. To invoke this feeling of
helplessness, a developer can do many things. One of the easiest
things they can do is limit the resources a player has access to. By
giving players limited resources, developers force them to use those
resources as efficiently as possible. When confronted by a group of
monsters, the player would need to decide whether it would be more
beneficial to engage them, take the risk and try to run past them, or
retreat hoping to find more resources and/or find an alternate path.
Making a player decide this on the spot creates suspense and tension,
creating an oppressive atmosphere conducive to the feeling of horror.
Another strategy for building a scary atmosphere is to use unsettling
set pieces to creep out the player. Now, when I say set pieces, I am
NOT referring to the explosion-filled, Micheal Bay- like linear
levels in a Call of Duty game. Instead, I am referring to the
self-contained stories
told via the environment similar to those
common in Bethesda games. Using the environment to tell small stories
regarding the people in an area is a powerful narrative tool,
especially in a horror game. When it comes to scaring the player,
their own mind is the most effective tool a developer can use against
them. Knowing this crucial piece of information, a designer can
implant details into a room and maybe include a note or audio file or
two to draw a scene in the player's head. While the designer will be
able to create the general idea, the actual image will be generated
by the player's mind, which means that it will be custom tailored to
frighten them. This further creates an unsettling and frightening
atmosphere for the game.

Keeping
with the idea of using making the player draft up details in their
head, horror is often best achieved by showing as little as possible.
Obfuscation is a very valid method for supporting the idea of horror
in a video game. Many of the most successful horror games have worked
well because they embraced their technical limitations and kept many
details obscure. The most well-known example of this would be Silent
Hill 2. Due to the limitations of the original Playstation system,
Silent Hill 2 was not able to draw all the details of an area on
screen at one time. In order to compensate, they blanketed the area
just outside their draw limit with a dense fog that kept it out of
view. This, combined with the unsettling atmosphere, had the
beneficial side-effect of letting the players use their imaginations
when traveling through the titular Silent Hill and added to the
tension of what was going on in the game. The other way a designer
can force the player to use their imagination is through keeping a
minimalist mindset when designing the game. We humans are used to
living in densely populated areas for the most part. Thus, we feel
naturally freaked out when we see areas devoid of life. When a
designer deliberately places few, spaced out lifeforms (friend OR
foe) in an area, it invokes the Uncanny Valley effect. Seeing a
familiar urban setting without the familiar urban population is close
to what we are used to, but not quite close enough that we feel
comfortable. This also calls forth a feeling of isolation. One
man/woman, alone against overwhelming odds with barely any ability to
fight back is inherently terrifying. A good example of this is in the
free indie title, Slender. Though like any horror game, its
effectiveness depends on the person playing, the developer of Slender
was highly proficient at using few details in order to terrify the
player. Trapped in a small, enclosed, wooded area with exactly one
for, the Slenderman, players have no way to fight back and no one to
support them. This is about as bare-bones as a horror game can be
and, when it works, it works to great effect. When
my friends and I played the game, one of them
had to leave the room and go take a walk outside after playing in
order to calm himself down. Another jumped the moment I moved the
chair a few inches. This limited, but precise use of details and
obfuscation was highly effective, yet it is also the reason AAA
developers have such a hard time capturing the essence of horror.
Games like Dead Space and the newer Resident Evil games are funded
with multimillion dollar budgets and top of the line technology.
Because there are few limits, they make highly detailed models for
all of their monsters. With foes that well-rendered, it is far more
tempting to throw them all into the limelight and force players to
look at them than it is to keep them in the dark and let the players
keep their imaginations and sense of tension active. This makes it
hard for them to truly frighten the player beyond mere jump scares.

However,
despite all of this, it is important to do one last thing when
building horror games, and it is something that is critical to the
art of fear. For prolonged, enduring play sessions, which many gamers
can be prone to at times, being tense and on edge the entire time can
be incredible taxing in a mental sense. In order to avoid depleting
the player's mental stamina, it is important to give them well
planned and spaced-out areas of safety where they can take a breath
and relax. This gives them time to rejuvenate themselves, manage
their inventory, and plan out their next move without the overbearing
weight of an oppressive atmosphere. Generally speaking, these are
also places where the designer would offer the player the option to
save their game. While allowing players a chance to relax is a good
thing, rooms like these, where the player does not have to worry
about confrontation, serve a duel purpose: They serve as a contrast
from the oppressive atmosphere. If a player experiences nothing but
horrors and nightmares, they will slowly build up a tolerance to
them. When developers have these periods of rest, they expose the
player to a different stimuli and vary the atmosphere a little bit.
It serves to remind the player that there is an opposite to being
under constant threat, which in turn makes the threat that much more
terrifying. Done well, these areas can serve to make the player
scared to leave them. The player will know that they are in a safe
haven, but leaving will place them in a hostile environment again.
This leads to some players procrastinating and waiting as long as
possible to exit. While some designers may see this reluctance to
move on as a sign of failure, the opposite is true for a horror game.
If a player is too scared to leave a safe haven, then the developer
knows he/she did their job properly. This contrast between the safety
of an area of respite and the danger of the rest of the game is a
strong asset that ought not be taken lightly.

Horror
is a very fickle beast. It requires immense effort to uphold and
maintain throughout an entire experience. Even when it is done well,
it is all up to the individual players and their mindsets to be truly
effective experiences and will rarely yield similar returns to that
of a shooter with an equivalent budget and attention to detail. All
of the factors that determine the likelihood of AAA doing it and
getting it right work against it. When designing games that are
designed to invoke fear, developers need to be extremely careful and
use deliberate, well-thought out strategies for keeping players
engrossed in the atmosphere of their game. This is easier said than
done and is the main reason why many of the well-known titans of the
genre, like Dead Space and Resident Evil, have begun to shift from
horror to action. Even thought this is the case, fans of the genre
should not lament it too much. Humanity will always have a place for
horror in its heart and people will always be there to try to satisfy
that demand. Given that many old genres like isometric RPGs have been
seeing a resurgence of late, it is not implausible that even should
the horror genre fade (which is highly unlikely), it too will return
in due time.